AB 406: Employment: unlawful discrimination: victims of violence.

Existing law, the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, establishes the Civil Rights Department within the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency, under the direction of the Director of Civil Rights, to enforce civil rights laws with respect to housing and employment and to protect and safeguard the right of all persons to obtain and hold employment without discrimination based on specified characteristics or status. Existing law prescribes various functions, duties, and powers of the department, including, among others, to bring prescribed civil actions for violations of specified federal civil rights and antidiscrimination laws.

Prior law, until January 1, 2025, authorized an employee who was discriminated or retaliated against for exercising certain rights to file a complaint with the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement in accordance with specified Labor Code provisions. These employee rights include, among other things, the right to take time off work to serve on a trial or to obtain specified crime-related relief.

Existing law, as of January 1, 2025, transferred the authority to enforce these discrimination provisions from the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement to the Civil Rights Department. Existing law also repealed the above-described Labor Code provisions, and added new enforcement provisions to the California Fair Employment and Housing Act within the Government Code. Among other changes, these provisions refer to a qualifying act of violence, as defined, instead of crime, or crime or abuse, for purposes of obtaining relief. Existing law further prohibits an employer with 25 or more employees from discharging or in any manner discriminating or retaliating against an employee who is a victim or who has a family member who is a victim for taking time off work for any of a number of additional prescribed purposes relating to a qualifying act of violence, as defined. Existing law requires an employee, as a condition of taking time off, to provide the employer with reasonable advance notice, unless not feasible, in accordance with certain procedural requirements.

This bill would reinstate the above-described former Labor Code provisions, to apply only to alleged actions or inactions occurring on or before December 31, 2024.

This bill would also transfer enforcement authority for two additional discrimination provisions relating to attending judicial proceedings from the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement to the Civil Rights Department.

The bill would make other conforming changes.

This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.